Adventures in the Psychology of Children: The Dark Side of Humanity

“person watching through hole” by Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash

I’m fascinated by children. In equal measure they can be both endearing and terribly frustrating, but more than finding them “cute” or alternately irritating, they’re so interesting to observe from a psychological perspective. In painfully obvious detail children can expose some of the slightly darker aspects of humanity as much as they can illuminate redeeming aspects of it.

It just so happens that I have my own case study in my own home. When I was 14, my parents had a “surprise” baby and thus, somewhat rapidly, me and my three siblings entered into foreign, new territory which involved cohabiting with a wailing infant — our little brother. He is now 5 years old and oh-so-excitedly entering kindergarten. (As an aside, he’s tremendously important to me and I can honestly attest to that cliche adage that parents always utter, often accompanied with a nostalgic sigh, “Oh, they grow up so fast.”)

In the company of my little brother, I’ve made a handful of observations. For one thing, young children are so truthful and honest, unfettered by most of the self-consciousness that we collect as we accumulate our years on earth. Almost blissfully lacking in self-awareness, children are prime examples of humans that just are. They are almost envyingly fluent in just being. By the age of five, say, it has not…